Incident noted above: no not by choice, at least in the sense of walking in knowing it ahead of time. Not meant to be an example of heroics, only that at that time and that place I was calm and thinking very clearly and very quickly in the face of something which would make many irrational and terror striken. It is only a personal data point on my reaction to high danger, nothing more.

In this particular case, a man walked out into the bay and stood neck deep for a very long time until overcome by the cold, at which point he drowned. Most firemen I have known are the size of pro football players. They would likely have been shoulders above water at the same distance. In addition they most likely would have had body mass (heat storage mass) far above the guy who was standing out there. The fact that he was standing and did not actually go further tells me he wanted talked out of it. With his limbs cold I do not think he could have given much fight.

But they stood there, followed regulations and watched until the cold seeped into him and he finally went under.

That is just plain sick.

Once, when I was still fairly young, but no longer working in the water, I was ashore and didn’t go out for a boy–there was heavy surf, a over head shore break and an extremely nasty rip. That was in a rural area far down the Mexican Pacific coast. The boy survived, thanks to another man who was just finishing a ride on a surfboard. Had the surfer not happened to be there I can’t say to a certainty whether I would have gone out or not. The next day I pulled out a local man in the same place. The surf and rip had abated only slightly. Possibly that act was some sort of redemption, but I’ll remember and occasionally relive my initial failure for the rest of my very long life.

Life can be difficult when you have choices. May I ask whether you went to the grenade by choice? Who is any of us to say, to speak of cowardice?

These first responders are not gung-ho adventurers, they are trained professionals. There is a right way to do a job and that is the way to do it.

In this particular case, possibly it was a bit borderline but in this case, in my opinion, the best thing would have been for one of the cops to draw their firearm and two in the head then home for cocoa. Someone who would perform an action which endangers others unnecessarily (which it would have, even were a boat present – Did I mention the rescuers that needed hospital treatment after attempting to rescue my father and father-in-law? I guess I did now).

Bottom line, this isn’t a Hollywood movie. If things go wrong, people die. Fathers, friends, husbands, sons. These people *do* risk their lives (though I have certain opinions about many police) and it isn’t really anyone’s place to be calling them cowards without looking at their record and basing it on a single incident. I’d lay good odds that if it was someone who had genuinely fallen in, they would have been gotten out. Heck, the guy was suicidal, who’s to say he wouldn’t have grabbed on and taken someone with him.

I’m sure that some people may not get what I am saying. My writing is charged with emotion but I assure that it is tempered with rationality. If anything I’m trying to say is unclear, I’m happy to unravel it.

As to how I would react? I can only say that I’ve stood and stared unblinking at a biker gang leader who held a grenade under my nose with the pin pulled while the rest of the gang surrounded me to see how I’d react. I simply told myself I’d see him in hell before I’d show fear. And yes, I confirmed it was real. Found out for sure years later.

I’ve also faced a few other incidents of extreme peril. and got myself and others out of them. Enough experience to have learned a bit about what sort of man I am.

So I have some basis, perhaps uncertain as such things are, of how I react when my life is on the line.

You train to a standard. And when duty calls for it, you reach inside and you go beyond it.

They were cowards.